Consolation
On the day following Madame Goesler’s dinner
party, Phineas, though he was early at his office,
was not able to do much work, still feeling that as
regarded the realities of the world, his back was
broken. He might no doubt go on learning, and,
after a time, might be able to exert himself in a
perhaps useful, but altogether uninteresting kind
of way, doing his work simply because it was there
to be done,—as the carter or the tailor
does his;—and from the same cause, knowing
that a man must have bread to live. But as for
ambition, and the idea of doing good, and the love
of work for work’s sake,—as for the
elastic springs of delicious and beneficent labour,—all
that was over for him. He would have worked from
day till night, and from night till day, and from
month till month throughout the year to have secured
for Violet Effingham the assurance that her husband’s
position was worthy of her own. But now he had
no motive for such work as this. As long as he
took the public pay, he would earn it; and that was
all.
On the next day things were a little better with him.
He received a note in the morning from Lord Cantrip
saying that they two were to see the Prime Minister
that evening, in order that the whole question of
the railway to the Rocky Mountains might be understood,
and Phineas was driven to his work. Before the
time of the meeting came he had once more lost his
own identity in great ideas of colonial welfare, and
had planned and peopled a mighty region on the Red
River, which should have no sympathy with American
democracy. When he waited upon Mr. Gresham in
the afternoon he said nothing about the mighty region;
indeed, he left it to Lord Cantrip to explain most
of the proposed arrangements,—speaking only
a word or two here and there as occasion required.
But he was aware that he had so far recovered as to
be able to save himself from losing ground during the
interview.
“He’s about the first Irishman we’ve
had that has been worth his salt,” said Mr.
Gresham to his colleague afterwards.
“That other Irishman was a terrible fellow,”
said Lord Cantrip, shaking his head.
On the fourth day after his sorrow had befallen him,
Phineas went again to the cottage in Park Lane.
And in order that he might not be balked in his search
for sympathy he wrote a line to Madame Goesler to
ask if she would be at home. “I will be
at home from five to six,—and alone.—M.
M. G.” That was the answer from Marie Max
Goesler, and Phineas was of course at the cottage a
few minutes after five. It is not, I think, surprising
that a man when he wants sympathy in such a calamity
as that which had now befallen Phineas Finn, should
seek it from a woman. Women sympathise most effectually
with men, as men do with women. But it is, perhaps,
a little odd that a man when he wants consolation
because his heart has been broken, always likes to
